Kindle Fire HD: first impressions

Kindle Fire HD: first impressions

First, a little background:

I’ve had Kindles since the original Kindle 1, and I’ve been using a Kindle Fire First Generation (KF1) since its release.

For disclosure, Amazon gave me this Kindle Fire HD 7″ 16 GB. That is not because I’m a blogger, and it didn’t affect whether I would have gotten it or not. I actually had ordered one before I knew I was being given one for my help on the Amazon Kindle forums. I am not an Amazon employee, and I don’t believe that having been given it will affect these first impressions.

The first thing I’d say I noticed is the change in shape. The KFHD is not as thick, but is considerably wider. It’s wide enough that I can see how holding it with one hand with the thumb on one side and the fingers grasping the other is going to be difficult for some people.

It’s odd, but it actually makes the screen look bigger…I’m not sure why.

I found the physical on button more difficult. It is out of the way more, and some people had problems with accidentally putting it to sleep before. This will resolve that, and I think I’ll get used to it…but initially, it’s harder to use.

Update: this issue may matter less with a cover that automatically sleeps it and wakes it. Amazon makes those, but only with leather, which I don’t use. I ordered a non-leather third party one (thanks to the heads-up from reader Jands1515):

There is no Settings Gear…you now swipe down from the top to get to those features.

The Carousel, oddly, started out just showing me e-books. As I opened other types of things, though, they did appear there.

The tabs at the top have changed:

Shop

Games

Apps

Books

Music

Videos

Newsstand

Audiobooks

Web

Photos

Docs

Offers

That “Photos” one was a big improvement over the Gallery app. My photos from the Cloud just appeared there…easy to use.

No Favorites shelves on the homescreen…instead, you get “Customers who bought this also bought”. I don’t see any way to turn that off at this point…some folks will definitely be irritated by that one!

You can add things to Favorites by “long pressing” the icon. You can then access the Favorites many places (not just on the homescreen) by tapping a star in the corner of the screen. Again, that may confuse people…they may think they are tapping the star to add something to Favorites.

When I did check apps and games I downloaded, none of them seemed to have brought over game progress, favorites, that kind of thing.

I checked the text-to-speech right away. You do that with the Aa button. First, you turn it on, then you press play. It appears to be the female voice from Vocalizer…only one voice is available….however, you can move the speed up to four times the speed. I just checked in the Applications…this seems to be Ivona. I’ll research that later.

One problem: it appeared that once I had bought the audiobook, for an e-book I owned, I couldn’t use text-to-speech…only the audiobook. For me, that’s a considerable disappointment, since I prefer text-to-speech. I’ll have to check that out more.

The sound, by the way, is greatly improved…much louder and clearer.

I tried Skype, but I’m not a regular user…and I didn’t have anybody with whom to Skype. ;) I couldn’t see an easy way to test the camera with that, so I switched to one of my favorite apps from my SmartPhone, Paper Camera. It changes the appearance of the world so that it looks like a comic book, or a pencil sketch (my favorite), or more. That looked fine.

Downloading does seem faster…for me, a movie was about three seconds per minute.

I have not been able to get X-Ray for Movies to work, despite trying it on Men in Black, which it tells me it should have the feature.

Let’s take a look at the menus, then I’ll do a brief tour of the tabs…I’ll write more about the device after I’ve had more time with it.

Swiping down from the top (the equivalent of the Settings Gear) gives you:

Locked

Volume

Brightness (this has an Auto Brightness setting when you tap it)

Wireless (tapping this gives you easy access to Airplane Mode, Bluetooth, Wi-fi On and Off, and Connect to a Network)

Sync

More

More gives you

Help & Feedback (your User Guide is here)

My Account

Applications

Parental Controls (at this point this is similar to what we have on the KF1…FreeTime is coming later. E-mail, Contact, and Calendar have their own place to be blocked)

Sounds & Display (this includes an Auto Brightness setting)

Wireless

Device (Storage is here, and is broken down by category, which is nice…it does not appear that the Apps & Games have a separated memory…it seems to all be the same. It takes it a while to calculate the memory usage, though…seconds for sure)

Location-based Services (you can turn this on or off)

Keyboard

Sound on Keypress

Auto Correction

Show correction Suggestions

Spelling Suggestions

Security

Legal & Compliance

Now, for a quick run through the tabs:

Shop (this is greatly improved, at least in appearance…the ad here scrolls on its own, showing you different “play now”/”watch now” options. You can really see the improved interface here. It’s fast and smooth)

Games

Apps (this also includes games…it’s easy to switch to List View, by the way. That was sort of hidden on the KF1)

Music

Newsstand

Audiobooks (nice to have these separated out and easy to find)

Web (this now was a “Trending Now” section)

Photos

Docs

Offers

Overall?

It’s a more elegant device, certainly…it’s cooler. :) The image is so much better (I’ll test out the glare factor), and the sound is better.

The interface will take some getting used to. :) One thing that throws me off is that the screen spins when it switches (on its own) from landscape to portrait. It doesn’t do 360s, but it’s some sort of effect.

Having text-to-speech for Kindle store books is great!

The keyboard has some new odd things. They’ve named the “enter” key “return”…so I think people will think it takes them back somewhere. I had a point where I could not get the keyboard to get off the screen…I had to hit the new tiny menu button, then hit back. That was not intuitive.

I’ll play with it more over the next few days, and I do think I’ll be carrying this one rather than my KF1 as my standard.

If you have any specific question, let me know, and if you want to share your impressions of yours, that would be great…just comment on this post.

Update: I know some of you are wondering what I’ve named it. :) I’ve listed the names for my other Kindles before. This one is Lucas, after George Lucas…wait, HD does stand for Howard the Duck, right? ;)

Update: I am now typing this part with a Bluetooth (wireless) full-size keyboard. That is really going to work, although it does take a bit of adjustment. Sometimes, it types several of the same letter, but that’s just going to take a minute or two, I think, to get the feel of it. I got the Microsoft Bluetooth Mobile Keyboard 5000. I like the size and the feel of it…I haven’t used a Bluetooth keyboard before. I don’t particularly like that it needs batteries, but it was recognized reasonably easily (I had to type a code on it twice, but I think I might have waited too long the first time). It’s going to be small enough to take on trips…I do have a pocket into which I can put it in my “utility vest”, but most people wouldn’t. :)

33 Responses to “Kindle Fire HD: first impressions”

Dear Bufo, sounds as if with my small hands the KF2 would be a real problem. I’m not refuting your love of text to speech, but I’d never use it at all since trying it on my K3. I guess I’d have to actually work with the new model, but right now nothing seems worth the difference to make me give up my KF1. But I can’t wait to get my hands on my pre-ordered Paperwhite! I’ve already gotten a cover for it. Should make a nice addition to my Kindle family. Now if I would quit trying to use my K3 as a touchscreen :>).

Yes, I do think small hands could be a problem. My Significant Other has smaller hands than I do, and I asked for the test. Once you are holding it, it’s fine, but it was more of an issue to pick it up…actually an uncomfortable stretch. A cover might give you a smaller edge, I suppose…somewhere else to grip.

The TTS thing isn’t for everybody, certainly…I’m sure I’m in the minority in preferring it to an audiobook.

I really do believe this new Fire will be Amazon’s ‘Vista’ (the much derided Microsoft operating system between XP and 7). Taking it out of box, it took me a good five minutes find out how to switch it on. Then I discovered the favorites option that used to be permanently at the bottom has been replaced by ‘Recommendations’, which as has been mentioned stays even when opting out of the ads (For the record I have three ad supported Kindles and have not opted out of the ads for any of them). The whole interface has become way ‘too busy’ for my tastes, and the touch screen itself not very responsive (another issue I never had). And again at least 1/3 of the screen is devoted to Ads.- even when removed. Unfortunately a beautiful screen, improved sound and a fast browser do not compensate for the changes made.

I could never understand the superior attitude taken towards Amazon products by many fans of Apple and others, and have always bought Amazon products and technology when originally offered because it has never let me down, Now I am fearing what the ‘lit’ Kindle will be like. Very very sad and disappointing, and going back Monday

I will say there’s a lot of flipping and spinning and “look at me, look at me” going on with the interface. :) This one does feel like it’s a lot more about Amazon’s needs than about mine, compared to the previous software (how many places do I need to go to the store?).

It doesn’t seem to be stopping me from doing what I want, but it certainly is the opposite of the peacefulness of the original Kindle.

However, I think Amazon does tend to be responsive (eventually), and software can be changed. I suspect we’ll get some way to suppress those recommendations, if we don’t have it now.

Bufo, have you tried immersion reading yet? I’ve been known to pop in the audio CD (before becoming an audible member) while reading along with the DTB (before the K1). A friend of mine said I was not reading but rather following along. Hhmmmmm. No, I think I was reading but I can se his point. Anyway, I think I’ll like that feature. Thanx for your report.

On another note. Do any of your books explain how to….I don’t even know what it’s called. It’s where authors can make it so their table of contents will take the reader to that chapter. Do any of your books explain how to do that? I have my first book coming out next week. I won’t mention the name because I don’t want you to think this note is just an excuse to promote my book. I would love to be able to do that though.

I haven’t tried Immersion Reading yet…I’ll have to find something where it is active (that’s only on about 15,000 titles).

I know it’s something that a lot of people will like, and special needs teachers use a similar system on some other devices.

I’m not sure that I would like it, but I’d certainly try it…hey, I didn’t think I would like e-books. :) The odd thing to me is that I’m sure that many people look ahead of where they are reading without being aware of it, and that informs what you are reading now. If you covered the words on a page except for the current line being read, I think it would considerably slow down reading for that reason. Inevitably, sight-reading along with a voice would be slower for me than just sight-reading.

Edited to add: sorry, I hit Reply before answering the second part of your question.

That ability to jump from the Table of Contents to a chapter is called an Active Table of Content (ATOC, AToC), or a “linked Table of Contents” (I think the former is far more common).

I haven’t written about how to format Kindle store books, and I would not consider myself an expert in that. I have, though, recommended using Sea-Monnkey, which allows you to do that pretty easily:

I’ve found very little not to like with the new Fire. Absolutely love the new sound. Volume controls are nice but I never really had a problem with the on screen one before. Ads? Again I don’t know why this upsets people so. They aren’t on the screen whenever you are doing, reading or watching something. How often do we just sit looking at the home screen? Again I realize “different strokes”. I kind of like the wider border as my thumb isn’t always causing the screen to move like with the original. As I stated in an earlier comment I sold both my Mindle and Fire to order the new ones and that left me without any Kindle for almost 2 weeks. I was so excited when I opened box yesterday only to find it DEFECTIVE! The power button didn’t work at all. When I first plugged it in to begin charging it it came on and I went through the set up and then spent some time loading pictures All my music is in the cloud but none of my pictures so I was side loading. I agree, glad to see the photo app gone! Any way I finally disconnected it and began to play around. I had to take the dog out and when I came back it was asleep with totally blank screen. I tried to wake it up and couldn’t. Finally I plugged it back in and nothing happened so I unplugged it and when I did it came on. After about 45 minutes on the phone with a rep who apparently had never seen the new Fire he told me he would do more research and call me tomorrow. WHAT?? I asked why since you couldn’t fix a defective button over the phone. I asked why they couldn’t just send me a new one. He agreed and it should be here Tuesday and I have the prepaid label to send the defective one back. In the meantime I will continue to explore the new things and prepare to enjoy one that I don’t have to plug in then out to turn it on. :)).

I agree with Karen. The “hardest part was getting used to the fact that the Fire HD REALLY wants to be used in landscape mode: knowing which way is “up” for readers like me took a few hours to communicate to my muscle memory. I’m almost there.

I have largish hands — I “type” with a stylus — so the Fire HD feels very good in them. Reading is an absolute delight. I also ordered a Paperwhite, so Whispersync and perhaps immersive reading will become more of my reading routine.

The “customers who bought this . . .” underneath the carousel felt “tacky” at first but that wore off quickly. I’m primarily a reader of history and other non-fiction and the carousel pointed me to well-reviewed books I hadn’t heard about on subjects I’m interested in. I even bought one. Yes, this is what Bezos and company hand in mind but I also benefited. Win-win.

Is there no way to lock the screen to keep it from rotating from portrait to landscape? My most comfortable way to read is to lie on my side. I hold my Kindle in landscape position, but I still want the text to appear in portrait.

Hello, Bufo,
I have the new HD, and mostly like it fine. It is my first device with text-to-speech, I don’t know how much I’ll use that, but am interested in trying it out, like when my hands are busy in the kitchen or whatever. I am used to using a stylus on the old Fire, less smudgy, and the new carousel seems a little over-sensitive. When I try to spin it around it sometimes opens a book or whatever, but it seems less “touchy” that way with my finger. Maybe I just need to practice with the stylus more. Thanks again for your informative work, (you saved me some more money the other day, can’t beat that!)

It does seem to me that the sensitivity has changed a bit. I think you’ll get used to that. :)

It may take you a while to get used to the text-to-speech (TTS)…it can be like listening to a friend with an accent. I’d say listen to it for a chapter before you abandon it. I mainly listen to it in the car, but I have done it doing chores with headphones on. The new Kindle Fire may be loud enough to do it without that…well, maybe not when vacuuming. ;)

Well, I was playing around with the TTS, and it can have some amusing quirks. I opened a book to the first page (Adventures of Sherlock Holmes,) and the display had a portion of the table of contents. The computer voice lady is, sometimes, quite literal. When I hit the play button, she began reading the table of contents, with chapters in Roman numerals,and she had most of them as numbers, 9, 11, 12, but for some reason, she said the letter x instead of ten. I got a chuckle out of that. It is a piece of tech that, as Spock might say, is “fascinating.” Enjoy, B.C.

Hi again, After reading some positive reviews of the new Fire HD I decided to give it one more spin before I boxed it up and sent it back tomorrow. I still can’t say I like it, but that’s okay because not everything is for everybody. But I had a strange problem that I am wondering if anyone else has. I sideloaded several books (without DRM), several photos and several movie clips (mp4). The books and photos transferred just fine but the movie clps (which all play fine on the original Fire) do not play at all, nor do they show up on the display. I am also given a pop up when I loaded them saying the items will be copied to the device but may not play.

I have been a Kindle lover since K2. I have had every release since then except the K4. I have MS and have been looking for something like immersion reading since Amazon bought Audible. This is my first major response to any Kindle product anywhere but to Kindle Customer Service telephone support.

As far as my experience to date, I have one minor and.one major issue. The minor issue is that I don’t have a fully charged indicator light on the outside of the device. i need to turn it on to see the battery charge level. Eh, i can get used to that.

The major problem is with Immersion Reading. When you are using the feature, the ebook and audiobook are not properly synchronized with the screen timeout setting. When the time limit is reached the screeen goes dark, but the audiobook continues.

I love this feature and have been looking forward to it for a long time. like I said, I have MS and it has resulted in cognitive as well as physical decline. Using two senses (visual and auditory) has helped me return to the joy of reading I had pre-MS. For years I have used two devices simultaneously to get the same effect as immersion reading. That was the only reason I upgraded from KF to KFHD.

As soon as I found this issue (Fri afternoon) I called Kindle Support and tried to explain my issue. I believe it was finally understood after I elevated to the 3rd supervisor. He finally understood the issue and agreed to open a Trouble.Report.and keep.me.posted on its progress. This issue has not been highlighted in any other reviews I have read. I hope it can be fixed quickly with a software update.

I am not a tech pundit or blogger. Just a customer. I constantly tried.to elevate an issue with note taking on the K3 that still hasn’t been resolved on that version. It has, however, been fixed on the Touch. I wish Amazon would use their heavy-user customers like you and me as product pre-release testers in real world use. Instead of reading about how bad the ads are (unobtrusive in my mind) or complaining how hard it is to load software or apps outside of Amazon (I bought the device for Amazon.content) from the technology writers, I would rather hear from those, like you and a few others, who want to use the devices as designed.

I’ve had the Kindle Fire HD since Friday and after three days I can’t say that I like it. I find the suggestions that take up the bottom 1/3rd of the screen very, very annoying. Whatever I do, there they are, like a bad smell. I suppose we have to accept the fact that Amazon is in the business to sell us things.
However, my biggest complaint is that I can’t side-load books to the Fire HD using Calibre on a Macintosh. I was able to do so with the original Fire because the version of Android running on it used USB mass storage and the newer Kindle uses MTP which is not compatible with OS X.
Unless Amazon approves Calibre Companion (for wireless syncing) for the App Store or someone roots the KFHD pretty soon, my unit is going to be returned.
All-in-all, I think that Google’s Nexus 7 is a better implementation of a seven inch tablet. It let’s you do what you want without intruding, the the KFHD does.

I appreciate you expressing your opinion here. I don’t use Calibre, so I haven’t run into that issue.

You won’t see the “People also bought” with the Kindle in landscape (wider than it is tall), by the way. When you have the e-mail app on the top (in portrait mode), it has a nice access to a new message, your calendar, and your top contacts.

Fortunately, Amazon does give you that thirty day return period…not every device is going to be good for everybody. :)

Such a nice and sleek device. Glad Amazon updated the look and feel of the device because it will sell to more people that way. Yeah, there are some kinks they need to work out, but for the most part it’s a great tab. Still experimenting with it.

I am pondering my first Kindle Fire purchase. I presently own a Kindle Keyboard with 3G.

My husband and I are retired and all of our vacations are RV vacations. Most of the time we stay at federal or state parks and military campgrounds.Many times we have poor or no WiFi service or cell phone service.

In what ways do you think the Kindle Fire HD with 4G could be a substitute for the technology and “entertainment” we leave at home when we go camping?

A second request I have is for you to consider writing a column about the apps that you think no Kindle Fire owner should be without.

Bufo,
If you have covered this I missed it. On the original Kindle Fire I was able to stream K-Love radio while I was at work. The new model says I have to install Flash Player but apparently it no longer supports Flash. Is that correct or is there a way to load it so I can stream the radio station again?
I still love the new model but like others find the power and volume buttons a little difficult. I did buy the Amazon case and using it makes using those buttons easier but I’m not sure I like it otherwise. I miss the option of multiple viewing angles that I had with the Marware cover I had for the first Fire.

I need to test it systematically (by taking my Kindle Fire 1 and Kindle Fire HD side by side and using a bright light. Maybe this weekend.

We have to be clear, though…glare is not the issue in reading outside in bright sunlight, generally. The issue with sunlight with a backlit device is that you are seeing what’s on the screen by a light coming from behind the image. That light is competing with the light of the sun, which is hitting the screen from the front. Having zero glare would not solve that problem.

Glare has to do with light reflecting back off the glass. If a surface is less reflective, that will reduce glare, which is what I think Amazon has done with the Kindle Fire HD.

That will help, but I really don’t see glare very much on my KF1. I just don’t angle it in such a way that I could see the disc of the sun reflected in the screen.

Hi! I need some help!! I’ve just been given a Kindle Fire HD 7″ I was goofing around with it when it just froze, so I turned it off (pressing the power button for 20 secs) It didn’t turn back on so I just left it an in the morning plugged it into the wall with my adaptor (input AC 100.240- we have 240 here). I saw a battery sign in the middle of the screen so I left it charging but now there’s nothing on the screen and I can’t turn it on! PLEASE HELPPPPP

Hi love ur bloc. My question is this: u have a kindle fire one I’m gonna buy the kindle fire hd…..on my first kindle there is my gallery full of music videos and pics….when I buy my new kindle and download all my apps from my amazon account to my kindle hd will all my pics and music videos be inside my gallery app?

The pictures and videos that you put on your Kindle Fire 1st Generation are not stored in the Gallery app: they are just displayed by it. Your Kindle Fire HD will already have an app on it to display photos: the Gallery app will not be available for download to it (and you won’t need it).

Copy the files from your KF1 to a computer before you get your KFHD, then put them on the new device, if you’d like them there.

By the way, not all of the apps you have for your KF1 will be available to download to your KFHD, if they are not compatible with it.

Hi my trusty kindle has now died and i am looking at a kindle fire hd but i have one question that i am struggling to find an answer for anywhere. Have you tried it in sunlight? I like to read on holiday but i don’t know how easy or difficult it would be to read in the sunlight which is the only thing holding me back from buying one otherwise i like it had a play today in a shop and i really do like it. It is only the sunlight thing that concerns me.

Reading your Kindle Fire in the sun is like reading your cellphone in the sun. They have similar technology, although I will say I find the Fire a bit easier than my Samsung Captivate. It won’t be like reading your other Kindle, which had a very different technology.